Reflections by award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett, author of many books about the sea

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Ray Bradbury's rejected stories

A cautionary tale about SF great, Ray Bradbury, contains the hint to never throw out those stories that linger in the bottom drawer of the desk.

Like all newbie writers, Bradbury collected his share of rejections.

But then he enjoyed sudden fame and success, with the publication of his collection, The Martian Chronicles. So he contacted an editor of a well-paying New York magazine, and asked if they had any files about submissions that had been turned down. The editor obliged, and he wrote down the titles of the stories that particular magazine had rejected.

And he went home to California, changed the titles, resubmitted the stories . . . and sold the lot.

Was the magazine The New Yorker? It's hard to tell -- but that magazine published a memoir of Ray Bradbury's love affair with science fiction, written the day before he died.